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Saybrook Hears Re-use Possibilities for Old Railway Powerhouse

For more than 100 years, the historic red and white striped smokestack and the building at its base were known to boaters as the Cat in the Hat. Once it housed the Shoreline Electric Railway Powerhouse. Now it’s vacant—and the town could lose it to the trash heap of history if it can’t be redeveloped. Fortunately, Goman+York thinks it can be.

The three-story brick powerhouse that was the subject of Goman+York’s analysis is owned by Between the Bridges, LLC. This LLC also owns the adjacent marina and will in spring 2016 start construction on the nearby Ferry Point residential development to be known as Marina Village. Between the Bridges, LLC’s principal owner is Tony Autorino.

The powerhouse structure abuts the sites of the marina and the housing development and, at three stories and with huge windows, has a magnificent view of the river. Town officials believed that with the right vision, the deteriorating structure could be re-purposed to make a productive asset. But what would be the most economically viable plan to accomplish this goal?

To find out, the town sought a state grant to pay for a market analysis of the building’s re-use potential.

In March 2015, Old Saybrook was awarded a $50,500 Making Places grant by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Connecticut Historic Preservation office to support a town market analysis of the re-use potential for the structure.

The town chose Goman+York to analyze the redevelopment potential of the historic powerhouse at 2-20 Ferry Place. On Nov. 12, the firm presented the results of its market analysis study to town officials and area residents at the Pavilion.

Introducing their presentation, Peter Holland of Goman+York said of the firm’s market analysis, “This is what we do for a living. We work a lot with old mills and rail stations, at the intersection of real estate and economic development.”

He said that in his tour of the powerhouse building, he found it was in relatively great shape.

Holland said that in 2014, the town valued the 3.25 acre parcel at $463,600 and the improvements on it at $525,600. At a 70 percent assessment, the land and improvements together were assessed at $692,500. So if the value of the property would rise to as much as $12- to $15 million through redevelopment, the town’s tax revenue from the property would increase also.

After looking at several possible uses for the property, Goman+York said the optimum plan would be redevelop the structure as a mixed use. The proposed concept would be to build out up to three floors of the structure with about 21 or 22 apartment or condominium units and develop up to one floor as a shared collaborative workspace.

This latter shared workspace concept has been become more popular over the past few years as more and more people work in their homes and/or in wi-fi hotspots in their community. The WeWork firm has opened many co-work office spaces in the last few years all over the country.

“Work is happening anywhere, any time, and co-work [office] spaces appeal to entrepreneurs and millennials. This is at the convergence of technology, culture, and economics,” said Holland. “We think there’s a demand for this.”

In the co-work concept, the ratio of public to private spaces in a co-work setting is about seven to one. That means that a co-work office might have several private offices for meetings; one or two conference rooms; a room for shared printers, servers, and wifi equipment; and the remaining space set up as open shared office space.

“What do co-work space users want? It’s got to be cool and it’s got to have a ‘wow’ factor. The location on the water is huge,” said Holland. “The co-work space would be open to anyone, not just to residents” of the building.

Holland said that with tall windows, water-views, and dock space, the structure and its site offers amenities that would provide the “wow” factor to attract residents and co-work space users.

In closing, Holland said the next steps would be to have an engineer conduct a serious environmental study of the building and assess structural conditions. Next, an architect would work with the owner to develop plans and construction drawings for the project. As part of this step, the firm hired would also work with town Inland Wetlands, Zoning, and Planning officials to refine the project plans.